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Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Imran Khan is becoming Irrelevant!

January 30,2013

By Saeed Qureshi

Imran Khan, the founder and the Chairman of the political party,
“Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) is quiet for quite some time. He must be
pondering about his future course by closeting him in his private room. A political
or public leader cannot sit idle or remain away or isolated for long, from the
public eye and the countrymen. His eerie silence and diminished activity pose a
big question mark.

His celebrated, illustrious colleagues who hastily joined the PTI with
great exuberance are also maintaining a stony silence. Recently we haven’t
heard any policy enunciation or dissemination of the PTI manifesto that must
have been prepared with lot of toil, intellectual input and by burning midnight
oil.

These are crucial times for the political stalwarts to kick
around in the length and breadth of Pakistan with all the sound and fury one
can marshal or summon. It is high time for Imran Khan to stage public meetings
in quick succession to convey his party’s manifesto and messages of hope and
new salubrious beginning in Pakistan.

He is one among the whole lot who enjoys a clean slate, a
reservoir of goodwill and a high moral ground that he is perched on. Alas, he
has wasted much precious time in motivating people and winning support of the
people of Pakistan.

In one of my previous article on Imran Khan, I had sketched
his profile and personality in the following paragraphs,”

“Imran
Khan the Chief of PTI could have flashed, like Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, as a
glowing star on the political horizon of Pakistan. But all these years in the
politics, he has remained a non-starter. Once in a while, he appears on the
stage, frets and fumes, displays his tantrums and then recedes into the
oblivion to reappear all of a sudden at a time of his own choice.

He runs
his political bandwagon by fits and starts. He is sincere and possesses
unbounded passion and limitless energy to make a difference but his fury and
passion is invariably short-lived. He suffers from a chronic malady of
inconsistency and conceptual bipolarity. He swerves from extreme to extreme on
both sides of his agenda. He thunders like the charged clouds but then drifts
away after a strong but brief shower of hyperbolic statements and high sounding
propositions.”

Now these
impressions were jotted down some two years ago and I vouch that these are
still valid and pertinent in regard to the mercurial and mysterious character of
Imran Khan. In all the bye-elections candidates from either PPP or PMNL have
taken the lead. All that PTI has been doing is to boycott the elections perhaps
under the lurking fear that PTI candidates cannot win.

If that
is the defeatist attitude of the PTI leaders to walk away from facing the
electoral competitions, then only a miracle can help PTI in capturing
reasonable number of seats in the forthcoming provincial or federal elections.

The youth
of Pakistan could have been a formidable force for the PTI to reach nook and corner
of Pakistan and to awaken the people and to galvanize them against the forces
of status quo, the rapacious privileged classes and the insidious system of
governance. The young lot of the country were all geared and ready to work for
the PTI to bolster it as the only party that was clean and could bring about
the revolutionary reforms and give Pakistan an honest and clean leadership.

Imran Khan’s
overblown metaphor of Tsunami has lost its vigor and steam. It has been
hibernating and slumbering with no commotion to cleanse the Augean stables of
evils bedeviling Pakistan. Imran Khan has been vacillating in making far-reaching
and timely intelligent decisions that could bear out his political acumen and
sagacity. The example of this flippant tendency is manifest in supporting
Qadri’s movement and then distancing from it.

His political
alliances for instance with narrow- based parties as JI and bluntly opposing
PMNL speaks for his immaturity and myopic vision as the leader of a political
party that should forge alliances with progressive and deep-rooted parties. In
all fairness his natural alliance could be primarily with PMNL and even other
factions of Muslim League. MQM could be another party that has a revolutionary
agenda and comes closer to the PTI for a monumental transformation in favor of
the common man and in support of the downtrodden sections of society.

Since his
forte is Punjab and some parts of NWFP bordering with Punjab, he could have adjustment
of electoral candidates with PMNL. That strategy could have ensured some seats
for the PTI also. But in the prevailing political brinkmanship, his biggest foe
is Nawaz Sharif and no one else. Thus he is in the habit of betting on wrong
horses and fails to read the direction of the political wind.

Imran Khan seems to be disenchanted with politics for some
inexplicable reasons that he knows best only. But factually this is the time to
hold frequent press conferences, have whirlwind tours of Pakistan and generate
a wave of apathy for the inimical forces that have been wreaking Pakistan from
day one.

He need to spit fire, show the skills of oration and
rhetorical outbursts to fire up and electrify the people to pave way for a kind
of peaceful French Revolution against the blood sucking elitism aristocracy,
feudalism, bonapartism and other exploitative outfits.

He is rendering himself irrelevant in the political arena of
Pakistan by sitting on the sidelines and watching nonchalantly and with folded
hands the fight of others. I suspect that he is going through an indecisive
phase of introspection that clearly means wastage of time and missing the bus
of political urgency.

He should be aware that other parties are well established. He
is relatively a new-comer and has to put in extra efforts and mount vigorous
struggle for PTI to be counted and reckoned with as a strong political force
and true representative of the suffering people of Pakistan.

3 comments:

Bhutto had the charisma of Awami style of oratory, which Imran Khan badly lacks.

Bhutto's personal conduct/character, at the time when he started his peoples' movement, was unblemished. Imran Khan doesn't enjoy that advantage (That's why he insists on limiting the application of Constitution's articles 62 and 63 to 'taxes and financial irregularities' only).

Bhutto had tremendous confidence in his mission and leadership qualities. He did not try to import and depend upon the 'electables' from other parties. In elections he nomintaed most of those candidates whom people never knew before and still he won a resounding success. Imran Khan seems to be lacking in confidence in his political idealogy as a leader. That's why he 'swerves from extreme to extreme on both sides of his agenda' as very aptly said by you. When people see same old faces around him imported from other parties, they feel he has nothing new to offer and no real change to bring in their lives.

Bhutto had one idealogy from the day one (what he termed as 'Islamic Socialism') and he steadfastly stood by that till shortly before his demise years later. Imran Khan is from the very outset shaky, inconsistent and clearly bipolar idealogically. He is trying to sail in two boats. That's why he neither enjoys the all out support of liberals nor a whole hearted backing of the Mullah.

The process of decision making in PTI leaves much to be desired. Some recent u-turns and retractions coupled with public displays of differences of opinion between the top leadership speaks volumes about Imran Khan's leadership and his party's inner strength and cohesion.

About Me

Columnist/Analyst/ Former Diplomat.
After obtaining my master’s degrees in Urdu and English literature from Punjab University, I started my career by teaching in a college. Thereafter, I had a stint in the diplomatic service of Pakistan. Finally I landed in journalism, an occupation that I am wedded to for over 20 years now.
I am a strong believer in a civil society and staunch opponent of exploitation in all forms.